Comment by fluoridation
8 months ago
By the spirit of the law, yes, it likely is fraud. I doubt you could argue it is by the letter of it, though. Normally fraud involves lying to someone to get them to enter into a business relationship with you, not to keep one. Besides, regardless of how many people were using specific features of it, the service is what it is. This wouldn't be unlike you calling your ISP to cancel your subscription and they asking you if you're sure you want to cancel such a great service. If the service factually sucks ass compared to other providers wouldn't make it fraud. All that matters is that it meets the specifications that were sold to you.
They’re not telling you its great tho. To continue your analogy, you call your ISP to cancel and they say “are you sure? Two other people are using it as we speak!” and you live alone knowing that’s impossible.
It wasn't an analogy, it was a comparison. I wasn't trying to produce an analogous situation. My point is that a company lying to you about their service while you're trying to cancel wouldn't necessarily constitute fraud. If the ISP lying to you in the way I said wouldn't be fraud, then "they are verifiably false statements made for the purpose of monetary gain" does not compellingly argue that Slack's lie is fraud. An example of something that would be fraudulent: "stay with us and we'll give you 1000 AI credits", but then if you don't cancel they only give you 100.
> Normally fraud involves lying to someone to get them to enter into a business relationship with you, not to keep one.
There is no distinction of the sort in the law. e.g. California:
(3) “Fraud” means an intentional misrepresentation, deceit, or concealment of a material fact known to the defendant with the intention on the part of the defendant of thereby depriving a person of property or legal rights or otherwise causing injury.
OK, well, by that definition it's not fraud, then. If I lie to you to convince you to not cancel a service you're already paying for then I'm not depriving you of anything. You're willingly continuing to trade your property for a service. For it to be fraud I would have to trick you into giving me something for nothing.
I don't understand your logic, and your statement isn't true.
Fraud doesn’t require someone to be "tricked into giving something for nothing." Courts have long recognized that it’s also fraud when one party induces another to act (or refrain from acting) by relying on false or concealed information.
That’s why there’s piles of case law on fraudulent inducement (getting someone to stay in a contract by making untrue statements) and fraudulent concealment (hiding negative information so they remain in the relationship). In both situations, the injured party continues performing under the contract to their detriment because of deception.
The key element is reliance on a misrepresentation.